


between starshine and clay

by karikes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: (trust me), Canon Compliant, Disability, F/M, Muteness, Post-Star Trek Beyond, Romance, Softness, i'm bad at tagging stuff but trust me it's soft, mute!Uhura, oh and
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 03:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13918197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karikes/pseuds/karikes
Summary: You are twenty when you meet the love of your life. You don’t know it then. You only think of how well you will do in his class. All you think of is how well you will do in your classes.You are twenty-seven when you are told you will never speak any of the eighty-seven languages you know again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back again with disabled characters! And SPUHURA! I know, it’s been so long since I last wrote for them. Those of you that stuck around for my long (and continuing) tangent into mchura: I swear I’m trying to finish other spuhura stuff too. (Y’all still waiting for the _like birds’ wings_ sequel: Oh my god I should NEVER make time promises about my writing. I’m sorry. It’s coming. I promise.)
> 
> I’m following the same idea as I did with [Sunflowers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12450444/chapters/28332411). Sign language will be in quotation marks like regular speech, with signed instead of said for ease of reading. Mind speaking/touch telepathy will be clearly marked or in italics.
> 
> Also, I’ve never written in second person in my gosh dang life, but it was happening, so I went with it. 
> 
> Title from [won’t you celebrate with me](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/wont-you-celebrate-me) by Lucille Clifton.

You are twenty when you meet the love of your life. You don’t know it then. You only think of how well you will do in his class. All you think of is how well you will do in your classes. 

You are twenty-one the first time you kiss him. It is you kissing him and not the other way around. He would not presume such a thing.

He told you that a moment ago.

His lips are the softest you have ever felt- which isn’t saying as much as it maybe should, because you value your grades above even your sex life.

Still, his lips are soft, and his mouth is warm like sunlight, and you sigh into him like he is your damnation.

He isn’t, of course, but you don’t know that yet.

You are thinking only of the fact that you just kissed a Vulcan and he has told you he would never presume, but he has thought about it. He’s thought about kissing you.

“How many times?” you ask, tilting your head.

“Three hundred and seven.”

He has thought about kissing you three hundred and seven times. You kiss him again, because it’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard.

He holds your hand, and it is the most erotic thing you have ever done.

That’s before you have sex with him, of course. The sex is amazing, and you think it might have something to do with caring for him first. He smiles that barely there smile of his and says it is highly probable.

You meet his parents and sign the paperwork and have a relationship. Your grades and your sex life are on the same page for the first time in your life. Your romantic life has a page for the first time in your life.

You are twenty-two when the love of your life loses his mother and home planet in the same day. You are twenty-two when you look into your love’s mind and see nothing because he does not have time to grieve right now. You are twenty-two when you think to yourself that you never should have believed that love itself hurt. It’s when the one you love hurts that the pain sinks its teeth in.

You try.

You try and you help any way you can.

He is still the love of your life, no matter the war inside his head.

He gives you his mother’s necklace. It is the most precious thing you own. 

You are twenty-three bleeding into twenty-four when your friend and captain nearly dies. The love of your life kisses you like he can’t breathe when Kirk is back. He kisses you like he can’t breathe, and you kiss him back exactly the same, because you know.

You know that the love of your life holds his captain as a brother. You know that the love of your life has already lost a brother because of his culture’s rigid social rules. You know that the love of your life has not spoken to his sister in years.

You know.

You kiss the love of your life as if you belong to him. For the first time in your life, you think that you do not mind belonging to someone. To him.

You are twenty-five when the love of your life tries to leave you. You let him, because you love him. You let him, because he needs to see what belonging to someone actually means. He thinks he understands what he’s doing. He thinks it’s for the best.

He is not always right, the love of your life. 

He realizes this, after you lose hundreds of crewmates and you rescue him.

You rescue him.

You have never cared for anyone as much as him. 

You tell him after Kirk’s birthday party that when the mission is over, you will go to New Vulcan with him. 

He says thank you.

You are the love of his life.

He says thank you, and he makes love to you like he wants to marry you. You never even thought about marriage until him. 

You want to marry him.

You are twenty-seven, and it is three months from the end of the five-year mission when you beam down on the away team with the love of your life, your captain, and three red shirts. You are technically a red shirt. You are also the chief of communications, so there is a delineation between you and them. It’s not important, really. What’s important is that you have a translator.

You are twenty-seven when an alien rips your throat open. You are twenty-seven when your love’s hand is trying to stop the blood. You are twenty-seven when the world turns black and the last thing you see is the panic etched on his face.

You are twenty-seven when you wake up.

You are twenty-seven when the doctor looks at you and says- in his sweet accent you’ve always loved the sound of- that the alien’s claws tore your throat to shreds and you lost so much blood you were dead twice in the four hours he stitched you back together. Your vocal cords are not the same.

You are twenty-seven when you are told you will never speak any of the eighty-seven languages you know again. 

You cannot be chief of communications with no voice. You already know sign language, so you are not completely voiceless, but you will not stop opening your mouth to speak from forgetfulness for eight months.

You are twenty-seven when you are forced to find a place to belong on a starship for the first time in your life. You end up in engineering because you can listen still and it’s not like you’re stupid. And there’s a deaf engineer you can talk to. That helps some.

The love of your life is concerned for you. 

_ You have lost your identity, _ he tells you in the darkness of your mind.

_ I have lost nothing, _ you insist. You have lost something, but you are trying to tell him your value has not changed.

He tells you he misses the sound of your voice.

You can’t respond.

He tells you he loves your hands.

You smile, just a little- just like him, in the eyes and not so much in the mouth. 

You ask him if he still wants to go to New Vulcan and get married like they planned, your hands strangely hesitant. You have never been this unsure before.

He smiles that so familiar smile- the one that’s more in his eyes and only a hint of his mouth- your love, and he takes your hands in his own. He presses kisses to them. 

“As if I believe in a future without you.” 

Your chest contracts without your permission, and you heave out sob after sob. You have never felt this vulnerable in your twenty-seven years of life. His skin on yours is that comforting dry heat you know like the inside of your eyelids, his thumb rubbing back and forth in a soft rasp.

You have not had to depend on anyone before. 

This is not the same lesson as belonging, but it’s related.

Your strength is still your own. Your strength is still your own. Your strength is still your own.

You are twenty-seven when you learn what it means to not be able to command the room with a word. You learn new lessons everyday now, and there are no grades.

Your love’s laughter is the sweetest feeling, bubbling through your veins like champagne. You’d drown in his laughter if you could. 

He offers to grade you on learning how to navigate the world as a disabled woman.

You offer to grade him on his accent when he speaks Farsith. He insists he does not have an accent.

“You do,” you sign, your hands insistent as your mouth forms the silent words. “At the back of your throat. Your glottal stops are short. Curt. Vulcan.” You can’t help your smile as he opens his mouth to protest.

“You need to ease your throat. Open it up more.” 

He looks at you with his teacher stare that you took seriously exactly twice. You reach out, tap his throat, and sign “Open.”

You make him practice his glottal stops for half an hour before they begin to sound open enough for passing Farsith. 

He thanks you, and thinks  _ 97 _ the next time he takes your hand in public. You nearly buckle over with laughter, leaning your head into his chest. 

_ What did I lose three points for? _

He twitches his lips, and thinks, _ Would you like to teach? _

You pull away from him, knowing this isn’t your joke. This is a serious conversation, and it should not be happening in the cafeteria. You take your dinners back to your quarters together, and eat while he explains that his father found a position needed to teach deaf, mute, and otherwise communication impaired students. Music, specifically. 

You almost cry, but you manage swallow the last of your curry past the lump in your throat. You still play your  _ ka’athrya _ almost every night with your love, but you don’t sing anymore. 

“I’d love that,” you sign, even though you envisioned commanding your own ship someday. You cannot be a captain with no voice without an artificial voice box, and you do not know if you want to do that. It seems odd, that with such advanced medicine, you hesitate to correct your disability. 

Not everyone does. You know you are not alone, nor in the wrong. You shouldn’t want to struggle like this, though; to give up command. 

Did you ever want command? Or was the next step?

You’ve always known what you wanted, ever since you were fourteen. You are not fourteen or seventeen or twenty-three anymore. 

You are twenty-seven.

Kissing him was not your damnation.

Falling in love with him set you free in more ways than you realized. Your grades mattered. They did. Your career mattered. It did.

You cannot speak. Grades are a joke between the two of you now.

He will not be teaching on New Vulcan, but he has told you that he wants to teach at the Academy again at some point. You want to teach to, which you can do without life-altering surgery.

You are afraid of the surgery. You admit it to yourself in the darkness, when your love’s hand rests on your stomach in almost sleep. He is afraid too, which he does not own up to until you open your mind to him.

He watched you die twice. You died twice in front of him. 

He has told you how many scars McCoy healed over.

You are not afraid.

You do not want the surgery. You are okay with losing your voice. 

You have not lost your strength. It still flows in your veins, an endless rhythm of power that you will never relinquish no matter what you choose.

You choose to keep your mutilated voicebox. You will teach children on New Vulcan when you get there in a month. 

You will not give ground because of your choice. After New Vulcan, you and your love will go back to the Academy and teach. Maybe together. 

He likes that idea, even if it’s not practical technically speaking and you will likely end up with a translator. You know this, but ask him to consider a special summer session where they teach together.

He smiles. You get drunk on his smiles even after all this time.

You turn twenty-eight two hours before your shuttle lands on New Vulcan. Your love kisses you like you’re getting married in a week.

You’re getting married in a week. You could have done it earlier, but you both wanted to do it on New Vulcan.

You are twenty when you meet the love of your life. You don’t know it then.

You are twenty-eight when you marry him, and you are a different person than you were at twenty. Kissing him was not your damnation. 

The bond pulls smooth and bright in the back of your mind when you are not touching him now. It is better than you thought. The sex is better, too, which you never would have believed until now.

Still: your strength is your own. 

Reaching for him to say you love him is as easy as breathing now.

You love teaching even more than you thought, even if your Golic sign language is a little rusty. The children you teach are not like their parents- not like your love either. They are wonderfully themselves, and even if you return to your home exhausted half the time, you are teaching them music and you are happy.

You are Nyota Uhura. You will never speak any of the eighty-seven languages you know again.

Your strength is still your own.


	2. epilogue

You are thirty-five when you teach a summer class with the love of your life. Your daughter and son are in daycare.

Your hands move bright and fast, and your love translates for you before continuing. You could use the bond, but you’re not here to freak students out. You’re here to teach.

Students love your class. You get asked to do it again next summer. 

You turn to your husband. 

He watched you die twice eight years ago. You will never speak any of the eighty-seven languages you speak again.

He smiles.

_ You look beautiful when you smile, _ you think through the bond, and smile back at him.

You will teach the course again next summer. 

You pick up your children from daycare. Your son clings to you, his soft cheeks resting on your chest. Your daughter runs to her father for a piggyback ride, and you walk together as a family through campus to the parking lot.

Students watch your love carry a five-year old as if it is the most serious thing he has ever done. They giggle, and you smile to yourself.

Your love is a good father.

Your son shifts in your arms, and you know he will cry when you put him in his carseat.

You are thirty-five, and you are happy.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a measure of choice with disability in a future like Starfleet. I understand that, and I have written this story exactly the way I believe it should be. Please understand that I am disabled and I know what I’m talking about. If there’s gross ableism in the comments, I’ll turn moderation on. 
> 
> Also, the "three hundred and seven" thing was inspired by a particular scene in my dear friend's work [Colorless and Green](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10926612/chapters/24303963), which is some truly fantastic spuhura.


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